On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Alice E. Marwick wrote:

I'm looking for research on the interaction of different types of CMC - e.g. how chat, email, IM, social networking, virtual worlds, blogging, SMS, mobile etc. are used together as part of a communication environment by users. Most studies I've found concentrate on a single aspect; I'm looking for work on the use of two or more types of CMC by the same users.

have a look at Isaacs, E., Walendowski, A., Whittaker, S., Schiano, D. J., and Kamm, C. 2002. The character, functions, and styles of instant messaging in the workplace. In Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, November 16 - 20, 2002). CSCW '02. ACM, New York, NY, 11-20. DOI=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/587078.587081 Abstract: "Current perceptions of Instant Messaging (IM) use are based primarily on self-report studies. We logged thousands of (mostly) workplace IM conversations and evaluated their conversational characteristics and functions. Contrary to prior research, we found that the primary use of workplace IM was for complex work discussions. Only 28% of conversations were simple, single-purpose interactions and only 31% were about scheduling or coordination. Moreover, people rarely switched from IM to another medium when the conversation got complex. We found evidence of two distinct styles of use. Heavy IM users and frequent IM partners mainly used it to work together: to discuss a broad range of topics via many fast-paced interactions per day, each with many short turns and much threading and multitasking. Light users and infrequent pairs mainly used IM to coordinate: for scheduling, via fewer conversations per day that were shorter, slower-paced with less threading and multitasking." Best regards christopher -- Dr. Christopher Lueg Professor of Computing University of Tasmania Private Bag 100 Hobart TAS 7001, Australia christopher.lueg@utas.edu.au http://www.cis.utas.edu.au/users/clueg/ CRICOS Provider Code: 00586B

Alice-- I defended my dissertation this past summer: Case Studies in International Virtual Workplaces. While the dissertation didn't focus on the genre systems you are referring to in your email, I did collect a great deal of data on the types of CMC used by the 22 participants in the study--always a mixture (or a system) rather than one tool. I'm not sure how or if I can be of help to you, but I do have these data which I plan to use in the future, and I'd be glad to talk with you. Best, Pam Pamela Estes Brewer Assistant Professor Department of English Appalachian State University phone 828-262-2351 fax 828-262-2133 email brewerpe@appstate.edu Alice E. Marwick wrote:

Hi all,

I'm looking for research on the interaction of different types of CMC - e.g. how chat, email, IM, social networking, virtual worlds, blogging, SMS, mobile etc. are used together as part of a communication environment by users. Most studies I've found concentrate on a single aspect; I'm looking for work on the use of two or more types of CMC by the same users.

Thanks!

Alice